Fighting the world’s Covid Fatigue

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Ms. Ezgi Nur, a medical student from Istanbul, Türkiye. She is affiliated with the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA), cordial partner of The Sting. The opinions expressed in this piece belong strictly to the writer and do not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one.

Health care workers, being among the most vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 pandemic, have been in the frontline since day one and still continue to serve those that are in need without having their demand or struggles receive enough attention.

Throughout the pandemic, healthcare workers have had to work for longer hours with high risk of exposure and under psychosocial pressure; with many, facing the risk of burnout, exhaustion and also work-home conflict. Many studies show that the anxiety, depression and stress levels have increased among health care workers during the pandemic, as well as decreased sleep duration and quality which have a significant deteriorative effect on their overall well being.

For instance, in a study conducted in Oman with 150 physicians and nurses (Badahdah et al., 2020) demonstrated that sleep quality of around 40% of participants were “poor” and more than half of the healthcare workers had low scores on the World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) which signalled depression. Additionally, about 29% of participants were found to experience moderate-to-severe anxiety. Another study conducted in Türkiye with 300 participants (Sertel et al., 2022) found that the anxiety, depression and stress levels of health care workers had increased with the extension of the pandemic period.

The fear of getting the viral infection and, furthermore, spreading the virus to others, potentially to close family member and friends, were thought to be among the primary concerns of the workers and the factors constituting their heavy psychological burden. Most of the providers even faced discrimination and high psychosocial pressure from peers and neighbours as they were seen “dangerous” or as a “threat” to their health as they worked in health care; therefore, they were faced with both judgement and feeling of loneliness (Alsuliman et al., 2021). Another significant concern of the health care workers were, unfortunately, abuse.

During the pandemic, acts of violence and abusive behavior increased dramatically worldwide, especially in low-to-middle income countries (Alsuliman et al., 2021). Health care workers experienced verbal and physical abuse while working in a highly stressful environment under inhumane conditions. All of these factors lead to a decreased sense of protection and safety along with increased levels of anxiety and stress as previos studies have demonstrated. In order to provide better protection for the health care workers, both mentally and physically, immediate actions need to be taken.

New regulations and changes in legislation are necessary to defend the rights of and protect health care workers. Otherwise, the health care infrastructure will not be able to address the needs of the population with the increasing numbers of burned-out physicians, high resignation rates and decreased quality of care provided.

About the author

Ezgi Nur was born in 2001 in Istanbul, Türkiye. After graduating from Robert College in 2020, she is now studying medicine in Koç University as a fourth year student. She is interested in psychology, photograpy, music and likes to read. 

Trending now: